And that's just it.... There will always be pirates (same with shop lifters). If someone gets a hold of a program, book, or any other IP and they like it odds are when it comes time to upgrade they will shell out a few bucks for it. Or am I putting too much morality in the hearts of the general public?
Nothing is worse than getting a new CPU and going to install an old favorite and finding you no longer have the key for it. That's happened to me a few times in the past 10 years :(.

I frequently find myself in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network neutrality, I don't believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don't believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don't believe ...

I've downloaded stuff from bit-torrent and have gone on to buy a retail copy of the movie or software. I sort of look at it like being able to try something out to see if it is worth the money or not.
The folks who complain about loosing money are not the creative minds behind the products.... It costs pennies to produce a CD/DVD for retail sale. The actors, writers, and other creative minds are paid pennies. The bloating that is most of the price goes to pay for production company's executives (paying off their mistresses, getting their daughter's a boob job, and silencing the sexual harassment suits).
We have high prices because of pirates. We pirate because of the high prices.... It's a viscous cycle with no end because of an outdated financial model. Remember when they said that the VCR was going to kill television?
If something is a quality product I will go and buy it. But when something is $50 a pop and it ends up sucking you're out the money with no recourse. If a movie is good from a download it makes me want to get the DVD even more check out the special features.
While I am not trying to defend piracy there may be times when you do it.... Case in point might be an older movie or tv show that you can't really get on DVD.
Open Source Software (Libre Office, Ubuntu, et al) doesn't have to pay out the butt for distribution. It's one of the best ways to get such software.

I frequently find myself in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network neutrality, I don't believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don't believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don't believe ...